| The Golden Girls | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Created by | Susan Harris |
| Starring | Beatrice Arthur Betty White Rue McClanahan Estelle Getty |
| Theme music composer | Andrew Gold |
| Opening theme | "Thank You for Being a Friend" by Cynthia Fee |
| Composer(s) | George Aliceson Tipton |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 7 |
| No. of episodes | 180 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Susan Harris Paul Junger Witt Tony Thomas |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Production company(s) | Touchstone Television Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions |
| Distributor | Disney-ABC Domestic Television |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Original run | September 14, 1985 – May 9, 1992 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | The Golden Palace |
| Related shows | Empty Nest Nurses |
The Golden Girls is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris, which originally aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992. Starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show centers on four older women sharing a home in Miami, Florida. Produced by Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions, in association with Touchstone Television, Paul Junger Witt, Tony Thomas and Harris served as the series' original executive producers.
The Golden Girls received positive reviews throughout most of its run and won several awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series twice. It also won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy.[1] All four stars each received an Emmy Award throughout the series' run and had multiple nominations.[2][3] The series also ranked among the top ten highest-rated programs for six out of its seven seasons.[4]
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The series revolves around four older women sharing a home in Miami, Florida. The owner of the home is a widow named Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan), who was joined by fellow widow Rose Nylund (Betty White) and divorcée Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur). They both responded to a room-for-rent ad on the bulletin board of a local grocery store. In the pilot episode the women had a gay cook named Coco, who was eliminated after the pilot episode.[5] The three were soon joined by Dorothy's mother, Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty), after the retirement home where she lived, Shady Pines, burned down.[6][7]
The series featured four main characters throughout its run, with many other characters recurring throughout all seven seasons.
The following actors and actresses played recurring characters:
The show also drew many well-known or then up-and-coming actors and actresses for single guest starring roles, such as Don Ameche, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Ken Berry, Lloyd Bochner, Sonny Bono, Eddie Bracken, Joseph Campanella, Virginia Capers, Rosalind Cash, George Clooney, Polly Holliday, Robert Culp, Ruby Dee, the Del Rubio triplets, Jeane Dixon, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Johnny Gilbert, Alice Ghostley, Peter Graves, Merv Griffin, George Grizzard, Gary Grubbs, Bob Hope, Julio Iglesias, Freddie Jackson, Tony Jay, Billy Jayne, Gordon Jump, Paula Kelly, Alan King, David Leisure, Hal Linden, Monte Markham, Mario Lopez, Dinah Manoff, Edie McClurg, Marian Mercer, Martin Mull, Leslie Nielsen, Anne Francis, Jerry Orbach, Leland Orser, Mark Linn-Baker, Tony Plana, Peggy Pope, Joe Regalbuto, Burt Reynolds, Debbie Reynolds, Donnelly Rhodes, Richard Riehle, Alex Rocco, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Harry Shearer, McLean Stevenson, Inga Swenson, Jeffrey Tambor, Meshach Taylor, Jay Thomas, Alex Trebek, Dick Van Dyke, Tom Villard, Lyle Waggoner, David Wayne and Fred Willard. Director Quentin Tarantino appeared as a featured extra as an Elvis impersonator in one episode.
Like many sitcoms and serials of the 1980s and early 1990s, The Golden Girls frequently referenced neighbors in storylines and set-ups for gags and crossovers. There were eight neighbors referenced over the shows run, one of them (The Westons) evolved into a spinoff of its own. Of the eight neighbor families only the Westons, the McDowels, the Bartons and Frieda Claxton were actually shown on screen. Their neighbors are listed as follows, in order of frequency of appearance and/or reference.
The Westons
The Westons consisted of Dr. Harry Weston, his dog Dreyfuss and his two daughters; Barbara and Carol. It was established in two episodes of The Golden Girls that Dr. Weston had been widowed. His late wife's name was revealed to be Libby when the Westons were spun off into Empty Nest. Dr. Weston was portrayed by Richard Mulligan and the character was a pediatrician. Harry Weston was prominently featured in a two episode story arch involving Dorothy suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He was instrumental in her proper diagnosis, being the only physician besides his referral who believed she was actually sick.
His two daughters also appeared throughout the sitcom's run. His middle daughter, Barbara, was portrayed by Kristy McNichol. She made her living as police woman and in one episode she arrested a man in the girls' living room. In Empty Nest it was revealed she moved back in with her father because she accumulated significant credit card debt and could no longer afford to live on her own.
His other daughter, Carol, (portrayed by Dinah Manoff) also appeared in several episodes. Carol had sightly more direct involvement with girls than Barbara. She dated Stanley Zbornak's psychiatrist, Dr. Halprin, in one episode and crashed Blanche's party in the episode 'Moonlight Madness'. Carol was neurotic and emotionally unstable. Her career, although thoroughly explored in Empty Nest, was never mentioned in The Golden Girls.
The Donaldsons
The Donaldsons were mentioned several times throughout the series. It was implied that they lived directly behind or beside the girls in one episode when Rose is struggling with an addiction to pain killers. The Girls stay up all night to support Rose battling withdrawal symptoms and Rose says "Maybe we all should just go to bed." After brief dialogue with Dorothy, Rose exclaims "No, it means I can see the sun coming up over the Donaldsons' house! It's morning, we made it!" This scene was set in the kitchen, which has only one window.
The structure of the family is never explained. Neither were their names. It was implied there were at least two teenage or preteen boys in the family. Blanche says "those Donaldson boys" in several episodes, including the only episode that involved the McKenzies.
Frieda Claxton
Apart from the Westons, the Bartons, and the McDowells, Frieda Claxton was the only neighbor to appear on screen. She was a misanthropic and sardonic implied spinster portrayed by Nan Martin and featured in the episode 'It's a Miserable Life'. A proposal was made by the Miami city council to widen Richmond street. In order to do so, a 100+ year old oak tree on Frieda's lawn would have to be felled. All of the neighbors on Richmond street created a petition to save it, and Frieda Claxton stated "she could care less if the city wants to cut it down." She eventually died on the courtroom floor and after the episode ended she was never mentioned again.
The McDowells
The McDowells were featured in only one episode, "To Catch a Neighbor". They had just moved in across the street and seemed to be perfect neighbors until the girls discovered that they were actually jewel thieves. They were arrested at the end of the episode and 'put away for a long time'. They were never mentioned again.
The McKenzies
Mentioned only once, they were implied to live directly across the street. In the episode in which they were mentioned, the girls come home to find Sophia selling the house. After several minutes of dialogue, Blanche says "those Donaldson boys must've moved the for sale sign from the McKenzies' lawn onto ours."
The Schillers
Mentioned in the episode 'The House Keeper'. Dorothy is outside on the lanai grilling food. A softball lands next to her and she throws it back while exclaiming "Nice hit Tracy, now why don't you try throwing into the Schillers' yard for a while." Due to layout of the house and lanai and the kitchen dialogue in the episode 'High Anxiety', it is implied that Tracy is a Donaldson.
The Bartons
These were neighbors from the episode 'Big Daddy', in which a storm knocks their tree onto the girls' lanai. When Leonard refuses to pay for the cleanup and insists the tree was not on his property, Sophia puts a curse on him. Gordon Jump guest starred as Leonard Barton and Peggy Pope as Gladys Barton.
| "I was running all over the house grabbing anybody who would listen. I kept reading scenes to them and saying 'God, this is brilliant [...] There's nothing trendy about this show. There are no tricks. It's a classic" |
| —NBC executive Warren Littlefield about reading the series pilot.[8] |
Ideas for a comedy series about elder women emerged during the filming of a television special at NBC's Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California in August 1984.[8] Produced to introduce the network's 1984-1985 season schedule, two actresses appearing on NBC shows, Selma Diamond, of Night Court, and Doris Roberts, then of Remington Steele fame, appeared in a skit promoting the upcoming show Miami Vice as Miami Nice, a parody about old people living in Miami, Florida.[9] NBC senior vice president Warren Littlefield was among the executive producers in the audience who were amused by their performance, and he envisioned a series based on the geriatric humor the two were portraying.[8]
Shortly afterward, he met with producers Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas who were pitching a show about a female lawyer. Though Littlefield nixed their idea, he asked them if they were interested in delivering a pilot script for Miami Nice instead, but as their regular writer declined, Witt agreed to ask his wife, Susan Harris.[8] While they had doubts whether Harris, who initially had planned to retire after the ending of their ABC series Soap,[10] would pen another project, Harris found the concept to be interesting as "it was a demographic that had never been addressed," and she soon resumed work.[8] Though her vision of a sitcom about women in their 60s differed with NBC's request to write a comedy about women at the age of around 40,[11] Littlefield was impressed, when he received Harris' pilot script and subsequently approved production of the pilot.[8] The Cosby Show director Jay Sandrich, who had previously worked with Harris, Witt and Thomas on Soap, agreed to direct.[12]
Hired to film the pilot, veteran director Sandrich would also become instrumental in the casting process for the series. Both Rue McClanahan and Betty White came into consideration as the series Mama's Family in which the two co-starred on, had been cancelled by NBC. Originally producers wanted to cast McClanahan as Rose and White as Blanche. The thinking for this was based on roles they previously played; White portrayed man-hungry Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, while McClanahan co-starred as sweet but scatter-brained Vivian Harmon in Maude. Eager not to be typecast, they took the suggestion of Sandrich and switched roles last-minute.[13][8]
Though Harris had created the character of Dorothy with a "Bea Arthur type" in mind, Littlefield and the producers initially envisioned actress Elaine Stritch for the part.[13] Stritch's audition flopped however, and under the impression that Arthur didn't want to participate Harris asked McClanahan if she could persuade Arthur, with whom she worked previously on the CBS sitcom Maude, to take the role. Arthur flipped upon reading the script, but felt hesitant about the McClanahan's approach as she didn't "want to play (their Maude characters) Maude and Vivian meet Betty White." She reconsidered, however, after hearing that McClanahan and White had switched roles.
Estelle Getty, who was younger than both Bea Arthur and Betty White, was the last to be cast as the elderly mother of Arthur's character. Tony Thomas spotted her playing the mother role on Broadway in Torch Song Trilogy, and asked her to audition.[8] Getty, who went through a three-hour transformation to become Sophia, wore heavy make-up, thick glasses and a white wig to look the part.[14] The character of Sophia was thought by the creators to enhance the idea that three retirement age women could be young. Disney's Michael Eisner explains, "Estelle Getty made our three women into girls. And that was, to me, what made it seem like it could be a contemporary, young show."[15]
Creator Susan Harris went on to contribute another four episodes to the first season, but became less involved with the sitcom throughout its run; she would however continue reading all scripts and remained familiar with most of the storylines. Kathy Speer and Terry Grossman were the first head writers of the series and wrote for the show's first four seasons. As head writers, Speer and Grossman gave general ideas to lower staff writers, and personally wrote a handful of scripts each season.[16] In 1989, Marc Sotkin, previously a writer on Laverne & Shirley, assumed head-writing responsibilities, and guided the show (to varying degrees) during what would be its final three seasons. Richard Vaczy and Tracy Gamble, previously writers on 227 and My Two Dads, also briefly assumed the roles of producers, until they were themselves replaced in 1990 by Marc Cherry and Jamie Wooten, with their first episode airing January 12, 1991 and Vaczy and Gamble continuing in supervisory production roles. Mitchell Hurwitz was also a long-time member of the writing staff.
The show was the first television series to be produced by The Walt Disney Company under the Touchstone Television label, and was subsequently distributed by Buena Vista Television (now Disney-ABC Television Group).[17]
The house's address was mentioned as being 5161 or 6151 Richmond Street, Miami. The outside model used in the shots of the house in the series was part of the backstage studio tour ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios. This façade—along with the Empty Nest house—was among those destroyed in Summer 2003, as Disney bulldozed the homes of "Residential Street" to make room for its "Lights, Motors, Action!" attraction. The façade, based on a real home in Brentwood, California[18] located at 245 N Saltair Ave, was used in the exterior shots during the first season of the show. Later, a model was built at Walt Disney World in Florida.
After six consecutive seasons in the top 10, and a seventh season at #30, The Golden Girls came to an end when Bea Arthur decided it was time to move on. In the hour-long series finale, which aired in May 1992, Dorothy meets and marries Blanche's Uncle Lucas (Leslie Nielsen), and moves to Hollingsworth Manor in Atlanta, Georgia. Presumably, Sophia was to join her, but, in the end, Sophia stays behind with the other girls in Miami.
In the bittersweet final moments, Dorothy, after making an emotional speech and telling the girls that "I love you, always," comes rushing back in through different entrances of the house for their final goodbyes, until making her final exit, saying "You'll always be my sisters. Always," leaving the other three ladies. The series finale was watched by 27.2 million viewers. When the series finale aired on May 9, 1992, it was the 10th most watched Series Finale of all time. As of 2010, it ranks at 18.
The remaining girls continued their story in the spin-off show, The Golden Palace.
Many episodes of the series followed a similar format or theme. For example, one or more of the women would become involved in some sort of conflict or problem, often involving other family members, men, or an ethical dilemma. At some point, they would gather around the kitchen table and discuss the problem, sometimes late at night and often while eating cheesecake or some other dessert. One of the other girls would then tell a story from her own life, which somehow related to the problem (though Rose would occasionally regale a nonsense story that had nothing to do with the situation, and Sophia would tell outrageous made-up stories). Some episodes featured flashbacks to previous episodes, or to events that occurred before the series began. Though the writing was mostly comical, dramatic moments and sentimental endings were included in several episodes.
The Golden Girls was shot on videotape. The south Florida setting added a warmth and lightness to the show, reflected in the tropical furniture and clothing favored by the women. The vivid colors and the light that flooded the production visually represented the vibrance of the lives of the characters.[19]
An immediate run-away hit, The Golden Girls became an NBC staple on Saturday nights.[20][21] The show was the anchor of the Saturday line-up, and almost always won its time slot, as the other networks tried to find shows to compete against it. The Golden Girls was part of a series of Brandon Tartikoff shows that put an end to NBC's ratings slump, along with The Cosby Show and L.A. Law.
The show dealt with topical issues such as the coming out of Blanche's brother, safe sex, same-sex marriage, empty-nest syndrome, ageism, elderly motorists, sexism and sexual harassment, assisted suicide, Alzheimer's disease, Teen pregnancy, caring for the elderly, impotence, death, adultery, solicitation, FBI Involvement, UFOs, illegal immigration and deportation, nuclear disarmament, political corruption, advance-fee fraud, chronic fatigue syndrome, organ donation, caring for the blind, domestic violence, problem gambling, substance dependence, artificial insemination, animal rights, unemployment, poverty and the homeless, child neglect and abandonment, gun violence, burglary, solitude, interracial marriage, adult education, plastic surgery and dementia. A provocative episode involved Rose getting tested for HIV years after receiving an untested blood transfusion.[22]
During its original run, The Golden Girls received 65 Emmy nominations, 11 Emmy awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Viewers for Quality Television awards. All the lead actresses won Emmy Awards for their performances on the show. The Golden Girls, along with All in the Family and Will & Grace, is one of three shows where all the principal actors have won at least one Emmy Award.
As a tribute to the success of The Golden Girls, all four actresses were later named Disney Legends.[23]
Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of The Golden Girls on NBC.
| Season | Episodes | Season Premiere | Season Finale | TV Season | Rank | Households |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 25 | September 14, 1985 | May 10, 1986 | 1985 – 1986 | #7 (tie)[24][25] | 18,726,200 |
| 2 | 26 | September 27, 1986 | May 16, 1987 | 1986 – 1987 | #5[26] | 21,413,000 |
| 3 | 25 | September 19, 1987 | May 7, 1988 | 1987 – 1988 | #4[25] | 19,314,800 |
| 4 | 26 | October 8, 1988 | May 13, 1989 | 1988 – 1989 | #6[27] | 19,345,600 |
| 5 | 26 | September 23, 1989 | May 5, 1990 | 1989 – 1990 | #6[28] | 18,512,100 |
| 6 | 26 | September 22, 1990 | May 4, 1991 | 1990 – 1991 | #10[29] | 15,361,500 |
| 7 | 26 | September 21, 1991 | May 9, 1992 | 1991 – 1992 | #30[30] | 12,065,100 |
In 1990, American syndicated reruns began airing, distributed by Buena Vista Television (now Disney-ABC Domestic Television), the syndication arm of Disney, whose Touchstone Pictures division produced the series.
In March 1997, the Lifetime cable network acquired the exclusive rights to repeat the episodes of The Golden Girls in the US for over a decade, until March 1, 2009. The last episode aired on Lifetime on February 27, 2009. Many episodes were edited for commercials & content. The Hallmark Channel and WE tv began airing re-edited episodes of The Golden Girls in March 2009 and both networks continued to carry the restrictions that Lifetime network originally imposed on U.S. broadcast networks.
In Canada, CanWest's digital specialty channel, DejaView, aired reruns of The Golden Girls from 2001 to 2004. Recently, the channel began airing them again. On January 4, 2010, The Golden Girls began airing weekdays on TVtropolis.
The Golden Girls has also been shown on LIVING in the United Kingdom. In Ireland, TG4 began repeating the series in September 2010 at 10:00 and at 14:00 Monday to Friday.
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment and former corporate division Buena Vista Home Entertainment have released all seven seasons of The Golden Girls on DVD in Region 1, Region 2 and Region 4. On November 9, 2010, the studio released a complete series box set entitled The Golden Girls: 25th Anniversary Complete Collection.[31] The 21-disc collection features all 180 episodes of the series as well as all special features contained on the previously released season sets; it is encased in special collectible packaging, a replica of Sophia's purse.[31] On November 15, 2005, Warner Home Video released The Golden Girls: A Lifetime Intimate Portrait Series on DVD which contains a separate biography of Arthur, White, McClanahan and Getty, revealing each woman's background, rise to stardom and private life, which originally aired on Lifetime network.[32]
| DVD name | Episodes | Box set release dates | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Region 1 | Region 4 | ||
| The Complete First Season | 25 | November 23, 2004[33] | August 17, 2005[34] |
| The Complete Second Season | 26 | May 17, 2005[35] | September 21, 2005[34] |
| The Complete Third Season | 25 | November 22, 2005[36] | January 11, 2006[34] |
| The Complete Fourth Season | 26 | February 14, 2006[37] | December 5, 2007[34] |
| The Complete Fifth Season | 26 | May 9, 2006[38] | April 2, 2008[34] |
| The Complete Sixth Season | 26 | November 14, 2006[39] | December 3, 2008[34] |
| The Complete Seventh and Final Season | 26 | February 13, 2007[40] | March 18, 2009[34] |
| 25th Anniversary Complete Collection | 180 | November 9, 2010[31] | N/A |
Upon the success of The Golden Girls creator Susan Harris later devised Empty Nest as a spin-off from The Golden Girls with some character crossovers. Nurses was later spun-off from Empty Nest, and the shows would occasionally have special episodes in which characters from one show made appearances in the others.[41]
After the original series ended, White, McClanahan, and Getty reprised their characters in the CBS series The Golden Palace, which ran from September 1992 to May 1993, and also starred Cheech Marin and Don Cheadle (Bea Arthur guest starred once reprising her role as Dorothy).[42] The show never approached the popularity or acclaim of the original, and ranked 57th in the annual ratings. Reportedly a second season was approved before being canceled the day before the fall schedule was announced.
Lifetime, which held the rights to The Golden Girls at the time, aired reruns of The Golden Palace in the summer of 2005, and again in December of that year. This was the first time since 1993 that The Golden Palace was seen on American television. Until April 2006, Lifetime played the series as a virtual Season 8, airing the series in between the conclusion of the final season and the syndicated roll-over to Season 1.
Capitalizing on the popularity of The Golden Girls, creator Susan Harris decided to develop a spin-off, centering around the empty nest syndrome. The initial pilot was included into the 1987 Golden Girls episode "Empty Nests" and starred Paul Dooley and Rita Moreno as George and Renee Corliss, a married couple living next to the Golden Girls characters, who faces empty nest syndrome after their three adult daughters moved out.[43] When that idea wasn't well-received, Harris retooled the series as a vehicle for Richard Mulligan and the following year Empty Nest debuted, starring Mulligan as pediatrician Harry Weston, a widower whose two adult daughters moved back home. Characters from both shows made occasional guest appearances on the other show, with the four Girls guesting on Empty Nest and Mulligan, Dinah Manoff, Kristy McNichol, David Leisure and Park Overall appearing on The Golden Girls in their Empty Nest roles.[44] After the end of The Golden Palace, Getty joined the cast of Empty Nest, making frequent appearances as Sophia in the show's final two seasons.
Empty Nest launched its own spin-off in 1991, Nurses, set in the same hospital where Dr. Weston worked. As one of the few times in television history that three shows from the same producer, set in the same city, aired back-to-back-to-back on a single network in the same night, the three shows occasionally took advantage of their unique circumstances to create storylines that carried through all three series, such as "Hurricane Saturday". This was one of the major factors in the popularity of fictional crossovers as a television plot device in the 1990s.
The Golden Girls: Live! was an Off-Broadway show that opened in the summer of 2003 and ran until November of that year. The production ended its run because the producers failed to secure the rights to the show. The play was served with a cease and desist order by Susan Harris and Paul Junger Witt, creators of the original television show. Featuring an all-male cast, The Golden Girls: Live! consisted of two back-to-back episodes of the sitcom.
The following is a list of Golden Girls episodes featuring characters from Empty Nest.
ET1 aired a rerun of the show in the summer of 2008 and managed to take a place in the top 10 rates chart, presented by AGB. The Greek edition features Mirka Papakonsantinoy as Dora, Dina Konsta as Sofia, Eleni Gerasimidou as Fifi and Ivonni Maltezoy as Bela.
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